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The Detroit Financial Advisory Board, set up to oversee the city’s financial restructuring under the agreement between state and city officials earlier this year, was sued today in Ingham County for alleged violations of the Open Meetings Act.

Robert Davis, a union activist and Highland Park School Board member who has mounted an array of legal challenges to the state’s emergency financial manager law, accuses the Detroit board of improperly meeting behind closed doors to discuss labor negotiations.

Although it is permissible to meet in closed session for such purposes, the lawsuit alleges no negotiations are underway and that, in any event, the financial advisory board is not authorized to engage in negotiations because it is not the employer of the city’s union workers.

The nine-member board, headed by former state Treasurer Bob Bowman, was appointed under the terms of the city’s financial stability agreement to oversee the reform of Detroit’s finances in an effort to avoid the appointment of an emergency manager or bankruptcy.

The lawsuit was assigned to Ingham Circuit Judge Paula Manderfield, who set a hearing for July 25, Davis said.